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Fans may cry “If Daryl dies, we riot,” but The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus says Daryl could definitely die, and he even knows how he’d like to go.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned after seven seasons of The Walking Dead, it’s that no one is safe. Even the most beloved characters (i.e. Daryl) can and will meet terrible ends. In fact, if the show didn’t keep adding new characters, there wouldn’t be many left by now.
One core group has been around since nearly the beginning. Rick, Carl, Daryl, Glenn, and Carol have been through a lot together. Technically, Morgan has been around since the first episode, too, but he didn’t rejoin Rick until recently. The loss of any one of these six characters would definitely hurt.
Fans of Daryl are so opposed to him dying, they’ve even coined the rallying cry, “If Daryl dies, we riot!” Still, actor Norman Reedus says it’s not out of the question.
“I think anybody could die on this show,” Reedus said. “Rick could die, anybody could go on the show. I don’t think anyone is safe ever on the show. I think they’re really good at throwing you zingers out of nowhere.”
Reedus is right, but it’d be hard to imagine the show continuing without Rick. The Walking Dead is an ensemble show, but at the end of the day, it’s Rick’s story. Without him, what would be the point? Then again, it would be so shocking and unexpected, it could be just what the show needs.
So if Daryl were to be killed off, how should he go? Reedus has some thoughts on that, too…
Daryl Dixon (Credit: AMC)
“I’d like him to just walk away and just walk away into the woods, and people go, ‘Where the heck is that guy?’” Reedus said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, he gets shot.’ ‘Oh, he turns into a zombie.’ ‘They put him down.’ We’ve seen all of that happen so many times. I think with Daryl, because he came in that way, I think he should go out that way. He should just walk away, and people are like, ‘Whatever happened to him?’ Nobody knows. He’s like the Outlaw Josey Wales or some s—.”
Whenever anyone dies on The Walking Dead, the cast takes it particularly hard. They’ve become a family on the Atlanta set. When you’re filming such emotionally wrenching scenes, it’s easy to bond with one another.
Even Norman Reedus, who we normally know as the tough-as-nails Daryl Dixon, says the deaths take their toll.
“It’s hard. It’s hard always to say goodbye to people on the show,” Reedus said. “Some characters it’s harder to say goodbye to than others.”
As I mentioned above, losing a character like Rick, Carl, Glenn, Daryl, or Carol would be particularly difficult. The same would be true for the cast since those actors have been together the longest.
“They’re all good friends of ours. It’s always hard but, when it’s certain characters, it’s really hard,” said Reedus.
